GPs' leader hits out at plans for Soviet-style 'polyclinics'

Plans to create Soviet-style polyclinics, with several GPs and specialists under one roof, have come under attack from a doctors' leader who warned they could waste huge amounts of public money.

Dr Richard Vautrey, of the British Medical Association, accused the government of trying to force a 'London-centric' model on the rest of the country and undermining the role of the family doctor. Larger clinics were already emerging where they were needed, but were not appropriate in rural areas, he argued.

'This is a government plan that is potentially going to waste hundreds of millions of pounds of scarce NHS resources, creating very large health centres that many areas of the country simply don't need or want,' Vautrey, deputy chairman of the BMA's GP committee, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

A major review of the NHS being carried out by health minister Lord Darzi is expected to propose rolling out the supersize clinics when it is published in June. When he released his interim findings last year, Darzi said large health centres were better for patients and he had 'no doubt' they would replace local surgeries with one or two doctors.

But his views were opposed by many GPs who feared they would damage the relationship between individuals and their family doctor.

Vautrey said the way the system was being set up meant multinational private companies would be setting up in competition with local surgeries. 'They are effectively going to be looking for the cheapest bidder, who is going to run these health centres... what is going to happen is a duplication of services that won't necessarily meet patients' needs.'

There was also criticism from MPs. 'There is a remarkable gap between the government's rhetoric on local decision-making and its obsession with imposing models of care from the centre,' said Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman. 'Polyclinics might be a solution for some communities, but particularly in rural areas access to a doctor could become a nightmare.'

But a Department of Health spokesman said: 'This is not the end of small GP surgeries. Health centres with more than one doctor and some specialists can deliver integrated and more convenient services for patients, and are already doing so in some areas. However, it is for local people and clinicians to decide what they want in their community. This is about the local NHS making changes that suit their patients' needs.'